Quick: In the process to get better Sunday, the Trail Blazers were a lot like LaMarcus Aldridge

And on the bright side this Sunday evening, LaMarcus Aldridge left the Moda Center walking under his own power, without crutches, perhaps a sign of better things to come for this struggling Trail Blazers basketball team.

I offer Aldridge’s incremental progress to set the tone, and to adjust your perspective as the Blazers head into the final 15 games of the season, a tone and perspective that would counter what every statistic and every instinct would tell you about this team heading into the stretch run.

The numbers are not pretty.

After losing an 18-point second half lead, and ultimately a 113-112 game to Stephen Curry and Golden State, the Blazers have dropped 12 in a row against the teams that would be in the Western Conference playoffs if they started today. Twelve.

It was the eighth straight time the Blazers have lost when the game is within two points with two minutes left in the game.

And it was the 10th consecutive loss to a team with a winning record.

Rip City has turned into Choke City, right?

I’m not ready to go there. And neither should you.

I had a frustrating conversation with coach Terry Stotts before the game. Without getting too heavy into the details, he was irritated with me at how I chose to project certain situations. A call here in Dallas, or a play there in Houston, and Stotts argued the narrative would be the Blazers are on track to win the title. Essentially, he felt the storylines were unnessarily negative.

I have to admit, it’s a fair point. The Blazers come back to beat Dallas after trailing by 30, I’m probably swinging from Aldridge’s jock strap. Even with the Dallas loss, if they would have held on to that 16-point lead in the second half at Houston, I probably would have gushed about the heart and guts of this team.

But they didn’t win either game.

I mention that, because midway through the third quarter Sunday, as the Blazers were building their lead to 18, I was writing notes to support a column on what I would suggest as one of the best Blazers victories in nearly two months.

I was going to write how Damian Lillard was showing that improved defense he had talked about. How Mo Williams made a surprise and triumphant return from a hip injury, which included a sneaky tip-from-behind steal that was sealed only after he dove on the court on that previsouly injured hip. How Nic Batum started to assume more of an offensive responsibility now that Aldridge is out. How Dorell Wright stayed professional throughout his long winter benching, and is now producing that three-point shot we all expected. And about how Stotts seemed to be searching for a lineup that clicked, until he finally found one in the second quarter when Williams, Lillard, Victor Claver, Batum and Robin Lopez that pushed a one-point lead to 11 at halftime.

And they were doing this on the first home game after a long trip, one of the most unheralded challenges in the NBA.

But then, it all came apart.

Two of the toughest things in covering a team are being critical, then facing the music, and putting things in proper perspective.

It’s a conversation Stotts and I have had multiple times this season. If Lillard doesn’t hit a three-pointer in Detroit, or Cleveland, how much does that game story change? If the Blazers make one of the four free throws they missed in the final 3:49 in Houston last week, would I have come down so hard on Aldridge, Batum and Lillard after the game? And if Batum makes the second free throw with 5.8 seconds left on Sunday, and the game goes to overtime, what’s the conversation around the water cooler Monday?

This is a long-winded way to say what Stotts often preaches: The process sometimes is just as important as the result. In other words, how well did the Blazers play?

On most nights, the Blazers win playing like they did Sunday. That’s because on most nights, Curry isn’t on the other side. And on most nights he is great, but not “spectacular” as his coach Mark Jackson described him after Sunday’s game. Same thing in Houston last week. Some of those shots James Harden made -- in particular the corner three to send the game into overtime, with Wesley Matthews blanketed on him -- you just have to tip your hat and say well played.

So that's why I'm a little reluctant to join the masses and pile on the Blazers tonight.

Maybe it was my pregame talk with Stotts. Or maybe it was the lens at which I was watching the game after I wrote down all the good things the Blazers were doing in building that 18-point lead. But in truth, it hit me when I was in the scrum around Lillard after the game, when he made his wise-beyond-his-years observation.

“Overall, we played a better game than we have in the last seven or eight games,’’ Lillard said. “We played a really good game.’’

In the grind that is the NBA, that's an important perspective to have. The goal is to get better than the day before. The Blazers did that Sunday, although it will be easy for some to argue against that.

You will hear a lot of people today complain about the Blazers’ pick-and-roll defensive principles, which has the big, such as Lopez, hang back and protect the rim, basically inviting the shooter to take a mid-range jump shot, often times wide open. That philosophy, combined with some uncanny shooting from Curry (37 points) and Klay Thompson (27 points), made the Blazers look exposed Sunday.

Matthews calls it playing the percentages.

“When we execute our pick-and-roll coverage, it’s going to work out more often than not,’’ Matthews said. “We know Steph wants to come off and get space and do all that stuff, but we will live with him shooting mid-range jumpers if we force him the direction we want him to go ... We were a little too loose and not connected.’’

And later, when it was suggested the Blazers could have switched things up, or given Curry a different look, Matthews snorted.

“It was the same defense, the same philosophy that got us up 18,’’ Matthews argued. “It’s the yin and the yang.’’

It is clear the Blazers are not right these days. They are banged up. They are not getting as many of the 50-50 balls as earlier in the season. And their late-game free throw shooting has been erratic.

But in the process to improve, in the quest to get better, Sunday was a step forward. Without crutches.